Climate Impacts on Capital Accumulation in the Small Island State of Barbados
1
US Center, Stockholm Environment Institute, Somerville, MA 02144, USA
2
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Tufts University School of Engineering, Science & Engineering Complex, Anderson Hall, Medford, MA 02155, USA
3
Brighton Business School, University of Brighton, Mithras House, Lewes Road, Brighton BN2 4AT, UK
4
BlueGreen Initiative Inc., Peterkin Road, St. Michael, Barbados
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Sustainability 2019, 11(11), 3192; https://doi.org/10.3390/su11113192
Received: 9 May 2019 / Revised: 31 May 2019 / Accepted: 4 June 2019 / Published: 7 June 2019
(This article belongs to the Section Economic and Business Aspects of Sustainability)
This paper constructs a model of climate-related damage for small island developing states (SIDS). We focus on the loss of private productive capital stocks through extreme climate events. In contrast to most economic analyses of climate impacts, which assume temperature-dependent damage functions, we draw on the engineering literature to allow for a greater or lesser degree of anticipation of climate change when designing capital stocks and balancing current adaptation expenditure against future loss and damage. We apply the model to tropical storm damage in the small island developing state of Barbados and show how anticipatory behavior changes the damage to infrastructure for the same degree of climate change. Thus, in the model, damage depends on behavior as well as climate variables.
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Keywords:
climate change; adaptation; loss and damage; damage function; return period; tropical cyclone
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MDPI and ACS Style
Kemp-Benedict, E.; Lamontagne, J.; Laing, T.; Drakes, C. Climate Impacts on Capital Accumulation in the Small Island State of Barbados. Sustainability 2019, 11, 3192. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11113192
AMA Style
Kemp-Benedict E, Lamontagne J, Laing T, Drakes C. Climate Impacts on Capital Accumulation in the Small Island State of Barbados. Sustainability. 2019; 11(11):3192. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11113192
Chicago/Turabian StyleKemp-Benedict, Eric, Jonathan Lamontagne, Timothy Laing, and Crystal Drakes. 2019. "Climate Impacts on Capital Accumulation in the Small Island State of Barbados" Sustainability 11, no. 11: 3192. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11113192
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